this year the cucumbers never stopped and would be going still if Ma hadn't taken the vines out yesterday. since we had a bucket's worth of them we made even more bread and butter pickles. i don't know how many quarts we've done of those, but perhaps 50... not counting all the cucumbers we've eaten and given away that's a huge amount from three plants.
the onions are in, i finally got out in the stiff breeze we had (otherwise the mosquitoes have been ferocious) and dug them all up (or at least as many as i could find). about a bucket full. most of them are between tiny and a few inches across, planted from a mix of seeds so there are at least four different kinds. they could have been thinned a lot more than i got around to doing, but even the small ones are good for a garnish and the red ones are always good for a bit of color. i'm drying/curing them in flats and then they'll be stored in the garage for the winter. it does get below freezing in there so perhaps i'll have to do something different, but there's also a really good chance we'll use most of them up before it gets that cold. yes, we can eat that many onions (and we've not started on the pickled beets yet).
squash are also in, Ma decided to take those vines out even if they were still flowering and starting small squash. i cooked up a bunch of the small squash along with some of the most reject onions that needed something done with them and a few red peppers too... turned out yummy. we ate one of the orange colored squash and i thought it was ok in flavor but i think squash taste better after they've aged a bit.
the tomatoes are almost done, the only remaining fruits on the plants are the cherry tomatoes the rest are all in the garage now finishing off. Ma said she's going to take those plants out today. which is good because i need a spot for the garlic... as usual the average per plant on the beefsteaks were about
25 - 30 pounds and the cherry tomatoes probably have been close to that too. it was a pretty good tomato year. the original plan was that Ma was going to be giving away the tomatoes this year, so why we have put up another 80 quarts of tomatoes i dunno, but we've gotten a lot of laughs out of it. 36 quarts are already gone (a friend was happy to trade us for them) and the rest are heading out too eventually... i hope...the dry beans are coming in ok, still have a fair amount to finish up on the plants yet. the past few weeks have been mild weather with little rains so that has helped get things further along. the mild weather has also meant little breeze so those mosquitoes have been a challenge to ignore. some days i was able to cover up so that they couldn't get through the layers of clothes and other days i would just go out and pick until i got fed up with swatting mosquitoes more than i was picking beans. but the past several days were windy enough that i could get ahead on the picking. i have a good supply of pods picked now so that i can shell and sort on the days when the weather doesn't cooperate. which might even be this weekend if the forecast does actually turn out to be accurate...
carrots and fennel doing well still. the fennel is just blooming and i'm eating some of the tops before they bloom. very yummy. decided to leave the bottoms alone so they could bloom... not sure how long they'll be edible if left out.
brussels sprouts... the plants are huge and we're not even picking them and eating them as much as we both like them, it's just been too much other stuff going on so we've not gotten around to it. as the plants were extras from my brother we didn't really know what to do with them and apparently we still don't. my Ma was going to chop off the plants and take the whole stalk back to my brother's place so he can deal with them or eat them as it would be a good laugh, but he can't eat that many either...
ok, well that's enough of this ramble. time to have a bit of breakfast and then out to walk and whatever puttering i can get into for the day.
songbird